Women Move Into The Pulpit Path To Leadership Roles In Churches Is A Struggle

July 28, 1985|By John Gholdston, Sentinel Religion Writer

Some women in today's clergy think the Apostle Paul, who was struck blind by God on the road to Damascus and then had his sight restored after he converted to Christianity, never really had his eyes completely open again.

Not, at least, as far as women go.

In Scripture, Paul issues the strongest of all anti-feminist comments, telling women to ''keep silence in the churches . . . for it is a shame for women to speak in the church.''

He also said he would not allow a woman to ''teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.''

He pointed out, and the Southern Baptist Church reiterated in a formal statement last year, that according to the Genesis account of creation, it was Eve, not Adam, who was hoodwinked in Eden and brought about the fall of humanity.

That accounts, at least partially, for the low esteem that Eve and her ilk have been held in by the Judaic/Christian theologians for centuries. The implication is that because Eve was not clever enough to see through the cunning wiles of the serpent, none of her daughters is clever enough to teach men anything -- particularly about religion.

But today, more than 1,800 years after Paul wrote those epistles, women are not keeping silent in the church. In fact, the churches that allow women to become members of the clergy are outnumbering those that don't, at least in numbers of denominations.

United Methodists, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ members, Presbyterians and even Southern Baptists have congregations led by women. In fact an estimated 5 percent of all working clergy today are women. Seminaries, the training grounds for tomorrow's preachers, report percentages much higher than that.

In the Episcopal church, which has allowed women to be ordained only since 1976, there are almost 1,000 women in the clergy and a third of the students in church-run seminaries are female.

More than 1,000 United Church of Christ ministers are women as are half of the denomination's seminary students.

The United Methodist Church has 1,500 female clergy including two bishops, the highest rank for an ordained minister in that denomination.

Even within Jewish circles, the concept of a female rabbi is becoming more accepted. The Jewish Reform movement has had women as rabbis since the early 1970s and now the Conservative movement has begun to allow females to train for the rabbinate.

But there continues to be strong opposition from males and females in the pews.

One seminary administrator likened the problem to that of female veterinarians, who, no matter how well-trained or capable, often are not allowed to treat the prize animals of some farmers.

The strongly conservative Southern Baptist Convention, for instance, has many women who are allowed to prepare for ministries in the denomination's seminaries, but few churches will allow them

to preach.

The denomination itself last year issued a non-binding statement opposing the ordination of women, citing Eve's participation in the fall from Eden.

There are about 350 ordained Southern Baptist women, of whom only 14 have their own churches. Ordination is done by local churches and each church has complete autonomy regarding its selection of a pastor.

Chief among the opponents of ordaining women to clergy positions is the Roman Catholic Church, which believes pastoral callings are divinely inspired and, all biblical injunctions aside, the Lord has not called any women to be priests.

Many women in the church are not happy about this apparently intransigent position. The World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations in 1982 sent a confidential report to the Vatican airing its feelings.

That report was leaked to the public earlier this year when some of the women's groups apparently felt it had fallen on deaf ears in Rome.

Among other things, the report hits the church for having so few women in decision-making positions, refusing to allow girls to serve at the altar and refusing to allow women to be ordained deacons.

The report said the group is ''deeply concerned with the fact that the church is losing a considerable number of women and will continue to do so unless more sensitivity is shown toward women's concerns and aspirations to participate fully in the life and mission of the church.''

It also suggested that ''the recognition of the ministry of young girls may help avoid the current loss to the church of many young women.''

The quandary facing church leaderships today, however, is not one that can be resolved easily by bowing to social pressure.

On the one hand, the role of religious leadership in Judaic/Christian history has been primarily male. In that tradition, the image of God has been a masculine one and God's ministers generally have stood in his place to lead and teach his followers.

To change the masculine image of God, many groups, including the National Council of Churches, have urged modifications of liturgies and prayer language to steer away from references to a ''father'' in heaven.